s!' Diana said. 'So the
eternal duel between us is maintained, and men will protest that they
are for civilization. Dear me, I should like to write a sketch of the
women of the future--don't be afraid!--the far future. What a different
earth you will see!'

And very different creatures! the gentlemen unanimously surmised.
Westlake described the fairer portion, no longer the weaker; frightful
hosts.

Diana promised him a sweeter picture, if ever she brought her hand to
paint it.

'You would be offered up to the English national hangman, Jehoiachim
Sneer,' interposed Arthur Rhodes, evidently firing a gun too big for
him, of premeditated charging, as his patroness perceived; but she knew
him to be smarting under recent applications of the swish of Mr. Sneer,
and that he rushed to support her. She covered him by saying: 'If he has
to be encountered, he kills none but the cripple,' wherewith the dead
pause ensuing from a dose of outlandish speech in good company
was bridged, though the youth heard Westlake mutter unpleasantly:
'Jehoiachim,' and had to endure a stare of Dacier's, who did not conceal
his want of comprehension of the place he occupied in Mrs. Warwick's
gatherings.

'They know nothing of us whatever!' Lady Pennon harped on her dictum.

'They put us in a case and profoundly study the captive creature,' said
Diana: 'but would any man understand this...?' She dropped her voice and
drew in the heads of Lady Pennon, Lady Singleby, Lady Esquart and Miss
Courtney: 'Real woman's nature speaks. A maid of mine had a "follower."
She was a good girl; I was anxious about her and asked her if she could
trust him. "Oh, yes, ma'am," she replied, "I can; he's quite like a
female." I longed to see the young man, to tell him he had received the
highest of eulogies.'

The ladies appreciatingly declared that such a tale was beyond the
understandings of men. Miss Paynham primmed her mouth, admitting to
herself her inability to repeat such a tale; an act that she deemed not
'quite like a lady.' She had previously come to the conclusion that
Mrs. Warwick, with all her generous qualities, was deficient in delicate
sentiment--owing perhaps to her coldness of temperament. Like Dacier
also, she failed to comprehend the patronage of Mr. Rhodes: it led to
suppositions; indefinite truly, and not calumnious at all; but a young
poet, rather good-looking and well built, is not the same kind of
wing-chick as a young actress, like Miss Cou